More than a Storm
by Skillet'66
Summary: It can change anything; in this case, it changed everything. Police, ambulance, rescuers, and eager news reporters try to find the 5 missing boys from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who are struggling with their own battles-alone.
1. Chapter 1

_**More than a Storm**_

_**Summery:**_** It can change anything; in this case, it changed everything. Police, ambulance, rescuers, and eager news reporters try to find the 5 missing boys from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who are struggling with their own battles-alone. **

**Part I: Alone**

**Ponyboy**

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><p>I sat on the couch, looking at the tv. Bright, red lights flashed below he screen. "Hey, Darry," I called, "You might wanna see this." I turned around to look at Darry, who held a phone up to his ear and his finger to his mouth, motioning for me to be silent. "Oh," I whispered.<p>

Soda came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, scratching his head with a fake yawn. "You seen Two-Bit anywhere?" He asked.

Darry hung up the phone and sat back on the wall. "That was him. His dad's left him at a gas station somewhere near the Dingo. He wants me to pick him up."

"Well, what'd you tell him?" I asked, trying to cock an eyebrow like Two-Bit did.

"I think you'll have to, Soda. With this storm and all, I can't leave you alone." He nodded at me. I could see the look in his eyes; he was really worried about me. I don't blame him, this storm was supposed to be the biggest one in history-or something like that. "Nothin' against you, Pony, but it's gonna be big."

"Like . . ."

"Yes."

His answer was stern in comparison to my scared, fragile question. I went back to my dream from the other day. It was the same thing, but it was the only thing I could remember. The foggy cloud prior to the storm, the flash of white light, the yell for help that was my own. It was almost too much. I leaned my head back on the couch. Soda sat beside me, somehow fully dressed now. "I'll be right back, Pony. Don't worry." He gave me a one-armed hug and walked out the door.

Darry looked at me with a hint of happiness. "He forgot his keys." I laughed. "He's gonna get himself in a bunch of trouble one of these days."

Soda walked through the door again, already soaking wet. "Forgot my keys." I looked up at Darry and grinned. He ruffed my hair a bit, affectionatly.

He sat down on the couch beside me and let out a deep breath. "You think you can help me clean out the closet?" I nodded.

There's a little closet in the hallway, near the bathroom. It's where we keep most of our extra stuff, mostly Mom and Dad's now. It's got a little light dangling from the ceiling, barely letting a dim shine cover the walls of the closet. It smells irony and dirty, probably because it is, but we don't mind. We usually use it as a storm shelter, considering we don't have anything better. I remember curling up beside Momma, lightning and thunder covering Tulsa and almost any part of Oklahoma. That storm was really big, but they say this one is gonna be bigger.

I started to get the boxes from the closet and set them in our parent's old room, like we had done on the night of that storm. Some of them were open a bit, and I could see inside them: Pictures, books, old papers, our old dog's collar. Darry and I even moved an aged, inactive tv from the closet; I think it was our grandmother's originally. I'm not sure why we never got rid of it. Either way, I liked having it, just like the old typewriter.

Darry grabbed the last two boxes from my hands. "Way too big, little buddy." He said with a grin. I rolled my eyes, smiling. He was still Superman, and he always will be-no matter what. The thought helped me; as we went through the house finding blankets and pillows. As we padded the musty, temporarily empty closet with them. As we waited for Soda and Two-Bit to arrive, soaking wet and glad to be sheltered, but they never did. As the sudden, blinding flashes of light and haughty laughter of the clouds grew closer and louder. As the amused clouds turned into risky wind, twisting and turning all around.

I was pushed into Darry's chest, positioned awkwardly. His legs wrapped around mine. Mine were criss-crossed, my head leaning towards him. He rubbed a warm, soothing hand affectionatly across my arm. "Where's Soda? And Two-Bit? And Steve?" I wimpered, barely audible in his ear.

Of course, that's the moment when I heard a shriek. It jerked my neck, my head, my whole body toward the sound. Darry didn't even tell me it wasn't, because he knew it, too. The scream we'd only heard once before. Steve's pitchy, scared scream, louder than anyone's, more rare than anyone's. It was enough to break me down. I clammed up against Darry, snuggling into his strength, his superiorness, his leadership. It kept me comforted and made me feel safe, but only for a second. Right before I heard another scream, sharper, louder, stronger, and quicker than the last one; he was cut off by the sound of travel.

Right before Darry and I were ripped apart by the same force.

Part of something tore off. From what I could guess, it was part of a wall to our house. I reached closer to Darry, telling him something in his ear. He leaned toward my ear, and said something louder and sterner, but with the same affection as if he were barely alive and about to die. Of course, that could be true. Something else was ripped away. Another part of the house. And another. It was right beside us; at least, that's what I was told, because I passed out just before Darry told me his dear response. "I always will. Don't you forget that, and don't think I won't find you."

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><p><em><strong>AN: **_**Hope you liked the intro! Reviews, suggestions, and flames are appreciated. Thanks. **


	2. Chapter 2

I left the house, promptly erasing the grin I had on my head. Hurrying to the truck, I swatted away the wet vermin falling from the sky with one hand, the other covering my head. A bright light struck the spilt second I came to a rest inside, thundering loudly, violently, and brightly against the gray-matted sky. When I escaped into the truck, I couldn't help but sit there a minute, looking at all the damage the wind had already done on the road I was to travel.

_Come on, _I told myself. _You gotta go. _

So I did. I slowly pulled out from the driveway, driving on the road littered with branches and leaves, covered in grocery bags and soda bottles. Dirty water from the creek trickled onto the streets and covered the soaking ground in floods. I took a dangerous chance and glanced at the house that was waist-deep in flash-flood water. "Steve," The word escaped my lips, and my hand almost instictively covered my mouth.

_Dammit, Steve. What are you doing!_

I took another chance, seeing that the last one failed me none, and looked back. Good, he was back inside. I continued driving forward at a regular pace, cosidered fast for this weather. I almost even smiled as the rainwater soaked the grass on the side of the road when the truck ran across it, but kept it to myself, remembering the rainy day I had gotten jumped and soaked in the same way not ten minutes later. I spotted the Dingo and sighed with relief.

My mind, the good, clean part with the angel perched on his little harp, was sending nice, relieving thoughts, _Not too long from now, me and Pony and Darry and Two-Bit, we'll be sitting in the living room. _But the dark side of me, that little devil dressed in black and red, was whispering in my ear,_ Or the closet. _

I nearly shuddered. I hated that closet. I don't think Pony remembers it, but we had to get in there once to hide from a storm. Though they say this one's gonna be bigger. Ponyboy was too young to feel anything, young with confusion and curiousity. Darry, or Superman, was old enough to understand it was all sound, and that the few branches in the road were only there because of the wind. But I was still in the middle, and let me tell you, the storm was the one and only devil to me. I was confused, overwhelmed, and when Momma said to me, "It's just a storm," I started crying. The thunder scared me. The branches falling in the roads were little demons the devil had sent. The lightning was energy. Energy that God sent the storm, so that it could roam wherever it pleased.

It almost sickened me.

I snapped my attention back to the road, thanking God that I was still in one piece. _Focus, _I told myself. I worked hard to do so, but when you have a lot on you're mind, mostly people you care about, while in a pretty dangerous situation, you tend to loose track on what's right in front of-

"Dammit!"

I swerved the car back on the road, taking in a deep breath as the car behind me blew their horn and let a stream of curses out. Perfect, the driver was a girl. I poked my head out the window and flashed a grin. "Sorry 'bout that!" I yelled as politly as possible. Sitting back in my seat and truly focusing on the road, I grinned to myself, but that angel in white was silently scolding me.

_Sodapop, don't do that, _The invisible little angel told me, still perched on my shoulder. _That's cheating. Remember what I said to you? What goes around, comes around. And not just to you. _

I shook my head and squinted my eyes on the road. There was something too familiar about the angel's voice. It . . . sounded like Mom's voice. Maybe it was her, but for now, I had to think about Two-Bit and his soaked self as I pulled in the gas station.

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><p>"Dang. Took you long enough." Two-Bit's first words to me were enough that I had to grin.<p>

"Well, did you think that I'd leave you here?"

"I was startin' to," He reached in his jacket, now that we were out and driving down the road, and pulled out a beer. "'Least I had time to get one of these." He took a long sip and, refreshed, let a breath out.

"How much it cost you?" I questioned.

He looked up, smiling at me. "How much do you think?"

The next I knew, we started laughing with each other. His comical grin spread wide across his face, and my movie-star smile flashed open in an instant. I don't know how long we laughed; I think we were both a little gone from the thought off the storm. I guess you can either laugh or fear. Personally, I was doing a little bit of both. We shook it off. He reached over with a shaking hand, turned up the radio, and took another swallow of, what I'm guessing to be, his fifth stolen beer within the hour.

"Hey, listen to that," I said, trying hard to keep my eyes on the road as Two-Bit cracked joke after joke, so boring that they don't deserve to be called jokes.

"Hey, yeah. That's them Beetles, ain't it? Change it."

I swatted his forehead. "Not that, idiot. Listen. I didn't think the train would run today." Two-Bit stopped in the middle of his hyper-active laughing fit, to listen to the roar of the speeding train I spoke of. "Hear it?"

"Soda," Two-Bit said, seriousness in his eyes for once instead of the over-excited slurriness of his drunken self, "I don't think trains sound _exactly _like that," He sounded more logical than he actually was, his voice sure and somewhat worried rather than slurry and ignorant.

I listened carefully. Only then did it dawn upon me that the storm was more . . . far more than a mere storm. The winds circled in speeding wisps, winding there way down the street behind us. "Shit!" I screamed, slamming full speed down the road. I leaned back in the seat from the jerk, finally slowing down. Two-Bit was breathlessly clutching the edges of his seat, fingers digging into the material. I was doing the same with the steering wheel, tightly swerving this way and that as the truck meandered its own ways.

"Dang," Two-Bit said as a reached 15 miles above the last speed limit sign I glanced at-and ignored. "Soda, this ain't no time for a drag race."

I looked at him for a while, as if he were an idiot-which, of course, he is-then said, "What would you do?"

He shook his head, a small, slick grin easing its way to his all-too-happy face. "Obviously," He concluded after thinking over the facts, "I wouldn't go as slow as you did." Then he did something that a normal person would never do. Not under these circumstances. Not under these choices. Not under the weight of a drunk and gone father, the weight of a mother and little sister left at the ramshack of a house they lived in.

He laughed.

The truck was filled with drunk, screeching laughter coming from none other than Two-Bit Matthews. It erupted from him in a high-pitched chorous of laughs, girlish giggles, howls, hoots, and, finally, ended with the slurry chuckle of a beer-filled man. _Stupid Two-Bit._

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><p>The storm did some pretty bad damage to my truck. That's the only thing I noticed when I could actually see anything, but I did notice something else different, too. I couldn't hear anything. I looked around. No sign of Two-Bit. Only trees, grass, and swriling mixture of a black and white sky. I was suddenly scared. I opened my mouth, and called out something.<p>

I didn't hear it.

My breathing was rapid. Could I not talk? No, of course I could talk. I just couldn't hear. And that was a dangerous thing when you're in the place that I am.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Okay, I forgot to mention that the last chapter was beta'd by RubberDu3ky. So . . . enjoy!**_

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><p>He was getting on my last nerves. My very last, freaking nerve. He threw down the glass, almost touching my feet. "Get out o' here!"<p>

I stepped back, bracing myself for the worst. Instead, he kept encouraging me to go out into the rain. "Go on!" He yelled. I hated it when he acted like this. He always got drunk when he got his pay. He always went to the nearest bar to hang out with old buddies from high school or college here barely remembered. He always forgot himself in the foul-smelling drinks and swirling mass of cigarettes and people. Always.

So I left.

Everything was flooded, dirty, and murky. I staggered through the waist-deep water as I moved farther away from my house. Trash, limbs, leaves, and even some broken parts of cars-mirrors, hubcaps, glass, windshield wipers-littered the empty sidewalks and roads.

It was only for a moment, but still I saw the storm that everyone was talking about. I cursed my father to myself, swearing up and down that one day I'd get even with him, just like always. The storm raged behind the tall-growing trees and shrubs, peeking its way through the forest. I looked at it for a minute as a passing car, swerving, blocked my view. I turned around and went back inside.

He was still mad when I went back inside, but he had calmed down enough. He sorta nodded at me with a twisted smile, indicating that he was sorry. I walked past him to the flat couch, muttering an acception to his apology as I slipped by. The couch wasn't the best, just like everything else in our couch, but it was still useful and fairly comfortable, so I laid down with my feet on the armrest. My dad slid into his armchair.

The storm kept its rage on outside; inside, we gazed out the window, praying silently that the storm would pass through with no harm. My dad was already bringing blankets and pillows-or at least the few we owned-into the bathroom, so that we'd have a place to go to if necessary.

Not long afterwards, my dad got up from his spot in the chair and told me, "We better get inside. It's getting rough."

I stayed on the couch, closing my eyes for a moment. "Okay. I'll get the last of it." I got up, searching the house for the few remaining pillows on the couch and on the beds. I paused for a second by the window. The storm was close, too close, but I had to get something.

I ran off to my closet, searching for a picture, _the _picture. I finally found it when the storm was approaching. My dad yelled for me, telling me to hurry up and saying that the storm was awful close. I ignored him. I went to the window, a stupid decision, once more.

"Help."

It was a word meant for my mother. It was meant for her so that she _would_ help. I'd never forget her, or Isabelle. Never. I knew I'd need it-help, I mean. I was so ridiculously stubborn that I had to grab their picture.

That's when the storm broke off one whole side of the house, including the window that I had stared out. The violent swirls of wind, rain, and dirt circled around me, and I was almost immediately knocked out, but not before I let out a blood-curtling scream.

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><p>When I woke up, I was surrounded by bricks, pipes, wood, and tools. I immediately recognized the place as the constuction site where a bridge was being reconstucted. I heard that people worked on it for community service. It could be worse, I figured. I <em>could <em>have nothing, but I have everything I need right here.

I set to work immediately, building a fire under the crumbling, half-built bridge. It wasn't raining anymore, and the moon was shining out high in the sky. I reached inside my jacket for the picture.

My mother, my father, Isabelle and I stood side by side. I had little Isabelle wrapped in my arms. I don't remember how old I was, but I knew that little Isabelle was only three years old. She looked exactly like my mother, with her fair complexion, the dark blue eyes, the shining strawberry-blonde hair. Isabelle kept us all together. Until she and Mom died in a car wreck. Isabelle was four and a half years old. That was probably why my dad and I were so far apart.

I shoved it back in my jacket, thinking about tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow would bring rescuers and others lookign for me. All I had to do was spend this one night here, and I'd be fine. I'd be back at home, back with the gang, back at school. Maybe not back at school. I'd probably use something fake like a broken arm to get out of school. Of course, those thoughts didn't last long.

As I laid, drifting off to sleep, a hand slipped gently over my mouth. It rocked my over body over. My eyes went wide as I stared face-to-face with the person who wrapped a cloth around my mouth, who drew out a knife from their back pocket.

I screamed, and they dropped the knife on my leg.

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><p><strong><em>Thanks for reading! Reviews are appreciated :)<em>**


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